ANDREW STILES: Why No One’s Talking About This Swing-State Senate Race That Could Determine the Balance of Power in Washington. “The outcome of this race will be a reasonably accurate reflection of the national mood, which is why Budd is probably going to win. He has led almost every poll by at least 3 percentage points since early September. FiveThirtyEight gives him an 80 percent chance of victory. In a midterm cycle under a struggling Democratic president, being a generic Republican running in a swing state is a pretty good gig. The stump speech, if you can stick to the script, practically writes itself.”